Is Islamophobia EU’s new glue?

Fascism by its very nature never contents with a single enemy because it bears an essence that produces hatred. In Germany’s particular case, in the past the target of this hatred was the Jews and today the victims are Muslims. Besides, Germany is not the only center of this “hostility to Islam,” which has become known as Islamophobia. Furthermore, fear of Islam isn’t even new. The West has long been scared of being Islamized and has battled this fear since 14th and 15th centuries.

Andalusian State, located in the south of present-day Spain’s Iberian Peninsula, built a spectacular civilization that would become a source of inspiration to later Islamic and Western societies. The collapse of Andalusian State became possible with a “Catholic Europe” ideal. Queen Isabella I and her husband King Ferdinand V made a commitment to the Reconquista (the re-conquering of Spain) struggle -in which the blood of Jews and Muslims flowed freely- by capturing Granada, the last Muslim fortress left in the Iberian Peninsula. Even, Isabella had pledged to not wash herself until the last Muslim was expelled from Spain!

The Ottomans’ siege of Vienna is also one of West’s traumas of confronting with Islam, but before that, the Islamization of Anatolia, had had collapsed the Eastern Roman Empire…

But it’s not necessary even to go that backwards, right under our nose the West’s fear of Islamization caused a fire that still smokes. The Serbian strategy in Bosnian war, let’s give its proper name, was a plan to annihilate the Muslim society. You will hear this from any Muslim if asked in the Balkans. The Bosnian Muslims, for being considered the successors of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, were asked by the Serbian politicians to go back to Turkey. “Why did you Islamize us if you could not look after us? We know that the cause of all the disasters that have befallen us is our conversion to Islam” they kept screaming.

Yes, the Bosnian Muslims could be subjected to genocide because of Europe’s fear of Islam. They were made targets of the bullets of Serbian Chetniks under the assurance of the United Nations. That is the reason why Europe, which had experienced the World War II and took significant amount of lessons from that, is turning a blind eye to a new genocide within itself, Europe’s new fear and new other: ISLAM

How is Europe going to perform its fight against its Islamization? Is it going to be implemented by means of Neo-Nazi methods that Germany will export to the whole Europe or develop more techniques that are sophisticated for that?

For today, the Islamization fear is stronger than ever because the West’s struggle against the Islamization requires abandoning the very foundational principles it enhances. Europe must face all the concepts, which provided an opportunity to patronize the rest of the world, namely “European values” such as democracy, tolerance and multiculturalism.

The Western world has distinguished itself from the rest of the “other world” whether they internalize these values or not. The West has also invented new Westernization instruments under the name of “hybrid modernities” -with the help of colonial intellectuals too- for the countries that are not foreseen as adopting and living the modern Western democracy. The recipe could be differentiated, but in the final analysis, the goal was to present the Western values as much as possible to under-developed civilizations and make sure they embrace these values. At the threshold we arrived today, the monster within Europe has begun to awake and spew its vitriol.

PEGIDA movement, which defines the whole European continent as a homeland domain, links patriotism to the condition of “Europe’s fight against Islamization.” This is a new test for all of the political parties ranging from Socialist Parties to the Greens, intellectual and non-governmental organizations that are Europe’s conscience and democratic face; a litmus test is in question here to test how far Europe has internalized the idea of democracy. Let’s see what the outcome will be.

The United States had conducted a perception manipulation by means of using terror with Islam in the same sentence and construed the whole Muslim world through al-Qaeda after September 11, and now Europe is making the same mistake, jumps very quickly to establishing the Islam-terror link and justifies the fight against Islamization of Europe by associating Islam with ISIS.

Meanwhile, the European Turks and Kurds who hold their Muslim identities in the foreground are being demonized due to the actions of ISIS. The Kurds and Alawites who are not engaged with Islam and religious wing are not part of this category.

We are well aware that these are not conjuncture dependent singular cases. We cannot console ourselves by saying this phenomenon will just disappear tomorrow. This fear and hostility are being exploited by European politicians as well.

Some researches shared with public indicate that one out of every three Germans supports PEGIDA. This ratio should not surprise anybody if we remember that a significant increase in the number of right-wing parties’ chairs was observed in the previous European Parliament elections. The cement to keep up the idea of the European Union is turning into hostility towards Islam.

This alarming rise is wished to cause foreigners to fear and flee. As a matter of fact, this is actually happening. In Germany’s particular case, the return of well-educated Turks has already begun. The young people who have studied in the German schools with a decent professional career are able to return to Turkey as they are not willing to tolerate humiliation and a second-class citizen treatment like their first generation parents had to endure. Perhaps this is also something that PEGIDA wants, expelling the foreigners from Europe.